Home Video Releases
Captain N: The Game Master has been put out on various media formats for home video releases since the early 1990s. USA VHS From 1992 to 1994, various season 2 episodes, mostly the episodes where Link and Zelda guest-starred, were released by DiC Toon Time Video, Buena Vista Home Video, Sony BMG Music, and Warner Home Video. These used the Family Channel copies for an unknown reason, and thusly have the extra fade-out and faster run time. *Gameboy - Oct. 27, 1992 *Quest for the Potion of Power - Oct. 27, 1992* *The Trouble with Tetris - March 23, 1993 *Having a Ball - June 8, 1993 *The Trojan Dragon - June 8, 1993 *Once Upon a Time Machine - ????? * Also had a 1994 reprint, which may or may not have the alternate soundtrack. The most commonly found of these are "Gameboy" and "Quest for the Potion of Power", and often turn up on amazon.com or ebay.com, or at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift stores. The other 4 are much harder to find, as they were released around the time Captain N was pulled from TV and Nintendo stopped producing NES products. DVD In February 2007, Shout! Factory released the first official DVD set of "Captain N: The Game Master". It includes the first 2 seasons of "Captain N" on 4 DVDs, minus the clip-show "When Mother Brain Rules", a copy of the original "Nintendo Power" short story, and concept art galleries and character bios, among other things. The cover songs in season 1 are not included due to copyright reasons, and thusly are replaced with the same music (in most places) that was used in the VGM/USA reruns, albeit used somewhat differently. An error in "chapter marking" on early sets chops off a 2-minute scene near the end of the 3rd act of "Queen of the Apes", causing it to be 2 minutes shorter than the rest. Speaking of run times, Season 2 episodes, like the VHS sets, use the Family Channel copies, and therefore seem faster and have an extra commercial fade-to-black. Stranger still is that season 3 comes in a separate set, paired with "All-new" Super Mario World like it did in season 3's original NBC run, while season 2 and "Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3" are in separate sets as different shows. Brian Ward of Shout! Factory, who put the sets together, said that season 3 was "legally" part of "Super Mario World", despite the fact that the two were always separate in all later reruns. This may or may not have been just to make customers pay more for a "box-set" of Super Mario World by adding in the 3rd season of Captain N rather than just a plain 2-DVD box of Super Mario World episodes. UK VHS In 1991, Tempo-Kids Home Video released several season 1 episodes onto VHS format. These contain around 1-2 episodes per tape, and like the original TV run in the US and UK, they include the pop-cover songs. *Captain N-"The Most Dangerous Game Master"/Legend of Zelda-"Underworld Connections" *Captain N-"Nightmare on Mother Brain's Street" *Captain N-"Kevin in Videoland" *Saturday Morning "Biggest Ever" Video-Captain N-"Wishful Thinking". DVD Strangely, unlike with the SMBSS, there is no PAL format Captain N DVD. However, season 3 is currently running on PoP in the UK, alongside "Super Mario Wold". Bootleg *In 2004, Transformerscds.com released a 2-disc DVD set of all 34 Captain N episodes. All episodes were sourced from various VHS tapes of varying quality, so the video and audio is poor on some episodes. Due to the fact that 17 episodes are crammed onto each DVD, numerous episodes skip, making some episodes unwatchable. It is still considered a collectors item in the Captain N fandom, as it contains all the Season 1 cover songs, and has episodes from rare airings (with the exception of USA airings, though copies of these are nearly non-existent* are nearly for some strange reason). *Numerous fan-made sets have also been made over the years, along with VHS. A while ago, low-medium quality Captain N VHS/VCD/DVD sets would often pop-up on eBay, but those seem to have come to pass as well, leaving unedited season 1 and 2 episodes VERY hard to come by. *The show is easily found online via YouTube or P2P file sharing networks. * If you have any, please tell us in the Discussion section. Where to Buy Amazon.com eBay.com Category:Cartoons